X-Com enemy within

Some initial notes:
- Due to the fact that this is a single player game I'm playing, you guys can't really actively add to this RP while in mission. All RP in here will therefore take place on the base or in the skyranger.
- Any RP is welcome, be it personal logs or interaction with other players.
- Your input is welcome, but not required. If none of you feel like adding anything I'll just solo ride this topic
- People gravely wounded will be considered in comma for the first 50% of their recovery time. They may not interact with other people or write their logs/dairies at that time. They are still welcome to post their thoughts.
- due to the fact that you usually can't really choose gender I'm not going to impose that you play as in game gender.
- I'll add as more comes to mind.

It is spring 2016. For the past year and a half people have been seeing UFOs around the world. Although sightings were initially dismissed as elaborate hoaxs, secret military tests or just people seeing things their number has increased significantly over the year. The UFO's proved to fast and agile for modern fighters to shoot down. This surely raised some eyebrows as the military denied any involvement with them, but the unexplained phenomena wasn't a real concern, even reports of abduction started coming in until some 4 months ago when the first urban abduction occurred.

The abduction took place in the small town of Norman Wells in Canada. Although initial emergency calls were dismissed as their number increased local police forces were dispatched. None of the police officers survived the encounter. Their Bodies were found all around he town filed with scorchmarks. 15 People were reported missing, some 30 more were found in coma, covered in green ooze near many of the unidentified objects that lay embedded in various locations around the town. The violent nature of this abduction quickly caused widespread media coverage and the world started slowly slipping into panic until the government decided to restrict access to the area of incident. The next abduction occurred less than 3 weeks after that in the City of Antisrabe on Madagaskar and it was just as bloody. Access to the scene was quickly restricted after media reported on the incident.

The third incident was just one week after that in Russian City of Smolensk. Russians, wasting no time, immediately dispatched military forces to the area. The result left a lot to be desired. Many armoured vehicles and tanks were lost to alien flying drones or alien ambushes. More were unable to reach the are due to gridlocks caused by destroyed equipment, yet many others found themselves at a disadvantage fighting in urban environment. Infantry found it self either gunned down by aliens and their machines or by their fellow comrades as they begun firing in unexplained blind panic or started acting strangely. The incident left the world on the brink of mass hysteria.

It was decided at that point, by the united nations, that special protocols must be put in place. To control the world panic the media would be denied any coverage of the area until it was sanitised. Any knowledge of the incident would be denied. Research was also given priority into developing better body armour and strike craft capable of intercepting the UFOs. It was around that time that and idea was put forth, by an old Scottish SAS officer by the name of Christoph Hempkin, that the alien thread should dealt with on a global level and that an elite strike force should be assembled from the world's finest special forces soldiers. The idea quickly gained leverage after a report surfaced after the recent abductions near Jeffersonville, Georgia, where a gravely wounded Navy seal officer was found stating that the aliens can be harmed and that his troop managed wound an alien and force it to retreat before another group of aliens gunned them down. The soldier die moments after.

Thus 1 month ago the international negotiation concluded and it was decided that an elite, international extraterrestrial combat force be founded. A secret base was build in west Germany and ESA launched a brand new ultra-high altitude radar satellite into a geostationary orbit above London. 4 news interceptors were developed capable of matching UFO speed and manoeuvrability for a couple of seconds and forty of the best special forces soldiers were recruited as well as 10 of the brightest Scientists and 10 of the craftiest Engineers. It is now 1st of march 2016, the base is now complete and it remains to be seen of this new X-COM is up to the task it was allotted. It is only a matter of time before the next abduction occurs.

After arriving to the base and giving an opening speech I immediately went on a tour. An nifty facility, but why did they give me so little to work with? We are facing a possible global invasion and I get 10 scientists and 10 engineers? 40 Solders, 300 thousand euros and a 253 thousand our monthly income? And on top of that the founding nations are concerned with my efficiency? IS THIS A GAME?

We are still the best hope for humanity, though, and the technology is far beyond what regular military uses. I got to see it in action. At exactly 0:38 AM the alarm rung. We got a report that abduction was in progress in France.Aliens, the cheeky bastards, were abducting people form the local barracks. The military, knowing full well what happens when you oppose them just vacated and secured the area. The lucky ones that is, the others were getting abducted by aliens. The sky ranger with 6 people was scrambled. I was expecting the worst. But our troops performed admirably under my command. We cleared them out - some 6 aliens and 3 drones and although 2 people are critically wounded none of them are dead. You should have heard the applause I got form people around me. I immediately promoted 4 of them. Specialist Tom took up a position as a gunner and Sam started sniper training.

After I got back from my mission I talked to Bradford. He's the central officer here in charge of keeping an eye on things while I run the rest of the operation. I also got to meet our scientist and our engineer. Seeing that everyone survived I ordered research be done into alien weapon fragments. Our shiny "super accurate" high tech weapons leave a lot to be desired. The titanium-kevlar armour, while weak, seems strong enough for our troops to not just outright die, like those poor bastards in Smolensk did. I also ordered 30 sawed off shotguns be produced for our troops. Those were free as the guys basically just take a regular shotgun we have and cut it in half.

Aliens have hit another city. This times it's Durban, South Africa. They were held up in an underground metro station, just
waiting for us, the little bastards. We got ambushed and one of my guys got flanked and instantly cut down. The poor
bastard bled to death as the medics got pinned down by enemy fire. My guys scrambled to cover and a fierce fire fight
begun. After taking one of those bastards down, three more appeared. One of my guys barely survived as he got hit behind
cover. On top of that another guy panicked. No one knows why that happened. Apparently he was fine one second, laying down
fire onto the enemy and the next second he's wallowing in his on shit and piss screaming. Obviously he got hit, but luckily
he's a strong bastard and survived that.

After another round of exchanges 2 more aliens die to my fire and another 3 pop up. At this point this mission is going
south and I begin contemplating retreat. My people are taking fire left, right and centre. I've got one guy dead, 3 are
wounded and then the shit covered guy begins hallucinating. What kind of a bioweapons are they throwing at us? How do they
work?

Miraculously my guys manage to fight their way out of this and kill the 3 aliens that appeared on our left as well as 4 to
the right things quiet down and for a second and I order them to break cover. And that this fucktard pops up. He shots one
of my guys in the open and the guy starts bleeding, badly. Being in the open he hits the ground, screaming in fear. Bad
idea, as another round of fire comes from hte other side and I tell my other guys to take cover again. Another burst of
shots popping open his panicking head bring his life to an abrupt end. Let this be a lesson to all of you. Panic kills
people.

And from there the mission goes form bad to worse. In the following exchange of fire only one of my soldiers manages to
dodge fire, the rest all get hit, barely surviving. At this point I think. This is it. It's over. I give the final orders
expecting the worst. Miraculously EVERY enemy shot misses. I never was a man that believed in god, but if there is one,
THANK YOU! The rest of the mission was a miracle, if I ever seen one. With all but one of my soldiers wounded and 2 dead we
managed to vanquish the enemy. First we killed the bastard bitch that made our guy panic before killing him, and then we
somehow managed to kill off the final group attacking us from the other side.

As the mission concluded we counted 14 enemy bodies. Another round of promotions followed. The Israeli got promoted to Rockteer. He then collapsed into a comma, after his stim wore off. No idea when he will be coming back to us or even if. Matthew Robson also got promoted, to medic. Good luck to him finding anybody to save if this keeps up. The third girl got promoted to Infantry class. She is currently resting. Oh and the Canadian refused promotion stating that they don't think random promotions can keep the morale going for ever.

Our short respite has just ended. An UFO has been spotted flying high above the Alps. It's current projected heading takes it straight toward south England. Are they going to hit London? I have scrambled the interceptor, armed with Avalanche missiles, but it's a long shot. In the last year or so no UFO has ever been shot down. Let's just hope these new Interceptors can deliver on their promise. I'm not holding out too much hope my self. I mean these things can reach escape velocities at will. They can traverse interplanetary, maybe even interstellar space at will. How can we ever hope to catch up to them, let alone shot them down. Well here goes noting.

12.09 PM 9th march 2016

Unbelievable. The interceptor not only managed to catch up to the UFO but after a vicious battle also shoot it down! The engagement happened over the Norwegian sea and, although heavily damaged, our interceptor successfully intercepted the UFO! You should have heard the applause and the cheering. I couldn't believe it myself but there it was. We have successfully downed an UFO. Those things are tough though. Even after that the UFO managed to fly for some 500 KM while barely staying in the air until it crashed in the Edinburgh 45 minutes later. Satellite imaging of the area showed movement around the area. The bastards were still alive. There was no other choice. I ordered the squad of six, including newly promoted specialists Tom Runham and Sam Cottrell to the area. I was hoping for a quick mock-up operation. Since when was I so naive?

As my troops landed minutes later I was still deciding the overall strategy. Later I wisely decided that I'm going to be cautions and not dash directly towards the UFO, as compelling as that sounds. I ordered my troops to check the nearby gas station first. As they entered that first building Tom heard alien noises from the other side of the fence, where the UFO had crashed. A quick peek over the fence revealed nothing and I decided to let it be for the moment.The interior of the gas station proved to be vacant, but just as we exited we had movement. Two alien Greys and a drone. They immediately took cover and the drone rushed towards us. Seeing that there was no viable cover outside I decided to move my scouting trooper back into the cover of the interior where I split my team into 2 groups. Spec Runham and Spec Cottrell alone with our designated runner moved outside to flank the enemy while the three remainig soldiers moved towards and opened the door becoming the bait. And the aliens took it! Their drone rushed towards them as the flankers took up their positions. The greatest problem quickly became the drone as the thing is quite durable. I had to expose one of my guys to take it down and its death explosion brought the wall down leaving anther of my troops exposed to enemy fire. Luckily the flanking team did their job right and one of the aliens was quickly disposed, while Spec Tom Supressed the other. Suppression worked as it fired at Tom and missed, leaving itself exposed to scouts flanking fire. Seconds later the alien body lied on the ground, filled with lead.

Having dispatched with this group I ordered my troops toward the opening that led to the UFO crash site, while one of them rand to secure a canister of this glowing yellow-orange material on the roof. I don't know what it is, but our Scientists will be thrilled to get their hands on that. As soon as we neared the opening we heard buzzing sounds. There were drones nearby. As soon as my guys entered the crash site two drones popped up. Two forward soldiers took down the first one and Tom took down the second one as shots from Sam again went wide. But since we heard more noises I told my team to keep their eyes peeled. Two mode tone popped out form the UFO and the reaction fire from the rookies quickly took one of them down, the other one again being destroyed by Tom while Cottrell missed horribly. To be fair drones are a small and nimble target, so at this point I could somewhat understand Cottrells bad accuracy.

As we approached the downed UFO we heard strange voiced from the inside. I ordered my runner to attempt to secure another canister of the orange stuff, but it shot tight as he approached it. Suddenly from the other side of the UFO four aliens popped out and took positions. I ordered my guys to take cover and prepare for reaction fire. The new Norwegian soldier took some reaction shots, but missed. Spec Sam Cottrell finally hit his mark as the first alien received a swift head shot. As I ordered one of my guys forward IT appeared. I don't know what IT was, it seemed to just phase into existence but one thing is certain. That thing came from hell. It immediately took cover to our left flank. Meanwhile aliens opened fire on my guys in the open. I ordered the runner to try and flank the bastard thing and I ordered my entire team except Cottrell, whose job was to take out the grey bastards, to open fire on it. The American even threw a High Explosive grenade that went off literally like 1 meter from it's position, yet here it was still standing. Moreover troops reported seeing it heal it's wounds within seconds, like some kind of Wraith. I ordered Runham to keep the thing pinned and he did it for like solid 30 seconds before crawling into a foetal position and crying like a little girl. I don't know what they are doing to our guys. If this is some kinda of a drug or biological weapon, it's target area seems to be very narrow because none of the other guys shat themselves. Anyway Tom lost his cool, started panicking and and exposed himself and immediately got shot down. The designated medic ran to him quickly stabilising him, while the rest of my troops continued pouring fire onto the demon to the left. Sam had quite some troubles hitting the greys as they kept ducking in cover. Then one of the got close and as the American poked out to keep it in sight he got shot by the regenerating bastard. At this point the fire fight with the bastard had been going on for so long that the magazines started to dry up and I started worrying about reloading. The crossfire continued as my agents kept dodging fire and the bastard thing to the left kept taking bullets like a sponge. Also another of the grey things ran through the UFO and got too close so I one of ordered my guys to switch fire and take it down. It's brains splattered across the UFO floor, but then as the fate would have it, the American, as he broke cover to shoot at the grey demon, got shot in the back when the alien, that Sam Cottrell still wasn't able to take down, shot him in the back. He bled to death in less than a minute. At this point I got desperate and ordered my runner to literally run up to the demonic regenerator. THE THING STILL DIDN'T DIE! At this point it must have eaten like 6 mags worth of bullets and it was still shrugging it off! Anyway, having done that the thing instantly returned fire and hit the runner, who then proceeded to shit themselves. I don't blame them. At this point I was slowly shitting myself too. Then as luckily, Cottrell finally hit his mark and the last grey bastard went down. After that everyone shifted all the fire on the demon, but the thing still managed to own the shat-themselves runner and they collapsed in the puddle of their own piss and blood. Another round of fire finally downed the thing and the area was secure of aliens.

Another round of promotions back at the base. I promoted the Norwegian - Tor-Eilif Hargaut to Specialist. They took up the scouting role. I also congratulated Tuomo Erkkilä on their promotion. They decided to become an engineer specialising in grenades. The Mongolian also received their promotion.

The loot however left a lot to be desired, however. The UFO was completely trashed and nothing usable was found. I ordered it sold to one of council members. Let's see what they can make of it.

I just received a call, from United States. I still can't comprehend what happened. Everything was going fine. X-COM has answered all the abduction calls. We even shot down an UFO, for the first time ever. Yet here they were. Telling me, really slowly for some reason, that in light of recent events they are withdrawing from The Council and their XCOM support. The strange thing is that they announced that they have lost their trust in the UN and will no longer be hosting it. Obviously that shook the world and the media are going crazy over it, asking themselves if this is connected with the "shadow troops" seen operating in various locations lately. Hah, the media - they always need to cause such a commotion. Talks are now under way to move the UN to Europe. It will probably be situated somewhere near Brussels as the EU takes the leading role in it.
Initial intelligence reports however tell me, that USA has suddenly seen an increase in UFO activity. I wonder if aliens have had anything to do with this. Only time will tell.

After a quick respite another contact. Another UFO. This time they came from the north pole. And you should have seen how our interceptor handled this one. this was a textbook interception. He got in, fired a missile, dodged a shot and the UFO went down. No damage on the interceptor. The UFO again crash-landed in Northern Scotland. Skyranger has already been dispatched, with our medic Robson and our Assault from Ireland.

Shortly after landing our task force encountered forward scouting party of two sectoids and a drone. Luckily they were easily dispatched by our superior numbers. And the team moved on. It is about then that they began hearing noises coming up from the other side of the bank. I ordered the team to check it out. As they peeked over the top then initially reported area clear around the UFO.

This proved to be a mistake as soon after a drone and three small grey aliens came running from it. I ordered the team to focus fire on the drone and Spec Matthew managed to hit it, but not bring it down. As a fire fight erupted three more grey bastards came running out of the UFO, one of them instantly downing a rookie that suddenly found himself too far ahead. He fell down bleeding and the rest of the team got pinned down, unable to help. This caused one of the other rookies to shit themselves and in their panic they got shot by an alien. Then the drone decided to rush in and the panicking rookie got shot again. The rookie started screaming like a pig and this caused the other rookie near him to descend into panic. Great. I've got a man down and now two of my five remaining soldiers rookies are panicking. Great. At least we finally managed to kill the drone, but the alien assault continued and I ordered and one of the rookies was soon dead while the other one was gravely wounded. Then another solder got hit and I ordered a fighting retreat.

As my soldiers started falling back and we abandoned yet another rookie to internal bleeding they got hit straight in the face. SPEC Robson was doing all he could to keep the solders alive. As the assault started falling back the alien did the looking thing again and they panicked. Are the aliens somehow psionic? And then the last of the rookies got hit and the only people remaining alive were the our Irish assault and Matthew Robson, now cut off from the evac point I decided. That if they have to die, they should go down fighting and they agreed. As I prepared for the worst a miracle happened. After 45 minutes of intense fighting I got an all clear from them. Apparently both SPEC managed to take down 6 aliens between them without getting shot. And they took out the fucking ascended entity that was raping us the other mission. I was baffled.

Although a mission was a miracle it was a statistical failure. We lost 4 people and the we again failed to salvage anything useful from the UFO. 4 lives. For nothing. Still, I promoted the assault. We have to keep the more going somehow.

A earlier today a UFO was spotted incoming from above the Mediterranean. I scrambled our interceptors and, well, I knew our luck will run our one day. The first interceptor couldn't even intercept the damn thing, before it had to refuel. The second one barely managed to caught up only to get totally wreaked by it's firepower. As the pilot tired to disengage he got hit again and the entire interceptor just combusted. Tats another 200 down the drain. As I scrambled the third interceptor the UFO did another quick pass over the Europe and flew off in the south easterly direction with interceptor in hot pursuit. but that interpretor again ran out of fuel before he ran out of fuel. 2 hours later we got report from alien abductions going on in Brazil.

Yesterday way a bad day. Probably the worst day up to date. First of all, we failed to intercept the UFO and we even lost an interceptor doing it, which caused it to land in Brazil. Obviously we had to go had respond to it. I sent out a quad of four rookies and two specialists. one of them was newly promoted Tor-Eilif. The operation was codenamed Vengeful Father. Mostly because I was intent to get Vengeance for that downed interceptor. Heh more like Mourning Father.

The operation started just as any other one. The skyranger landed and troops disembarked and I wished them goodluck. Shortly after disembarking our troops spotted an alien greything all by itself. It was an easy target and SPEC Tor quickly took it out with some swift close range flanking action. So far so good I though. I THOUGHT. As the squad advanced four more X-Rays were spotted. 3 greys and a drone. As the agents scrambled or cover things started going bad. As specialist Tor-Eilif was laying down covering fire a shot to the forehead ended his life. That man really had potential. AS the firefight continued we managed to kill an alien and drone. But then as one of the rookie positioned for a better shoot it happened again. A swift shot from the alien laser rifle ended their life.

And if that wasn't bad enough three more of the grey things joined the fray. The last thing I needed now that one of my troop was wounded and two were down was alien reinforcements. Fearing a repeat of the previous mission I ordered my troops to fall back. WE killed off one of the remaining alien causing the others to fall back and I ordered my troops to regroup. Then the rookie in the front got ambushed by three of the grey aliens. I ordered a fighting retreat, but then the rookie at the front started reporting seeing... music and hearing light. Seconds after they started panicking saying that there are ghosts attacking them. Must have been something the aliens did. I ordered the rest of the survivors to cover him.

The fight continued and another of the X-Rays went down. Then another of my troops started reporting visions as an alien popped up on our right. Shortly after that the forward guy go gunned down by the aliens, barely staying alive. Damn it. That's three man down and there are at least 4-5 aliens remaining and they have us on the defensive. The death throes and the adrenaline rush must have given the bleeding guy a second of clear though as they reported 6 more aliens advancing toward their position and probably another three behind them. That nine not counting the aliens that were attempting to flank us on the right.

This mission was a bust. No way was my squad of wounded rookies going to pull this off. As the though of full retreat became more and more appealing the other tripping-balls rookie got hit and the first one finally got put down by the aliens. Shortly after the same happened to the second one, though we were able to take down another X-ray. I ordered a full retreat with my remaining two soldiers. As they were retreating one of them got shot. The medic then managed to take down another alien as the wounded agent got put down by alien fire coming for mall direction. Shortly after the medic got shot. She was my only surviving agent in this shitstorm. I was doing everything I could to keep her alive and bring her hope ASAP. I ordered the skyranger pilot to start spooling up the engines. The medic continued a fighting retreat raining lead on the aliens, bringing down another one, but I knew being all alone she could only keep up for so long until her ammo ran dry.

She got flanked and suppressed. I ordered her to attempt to break cover knowing she was as good as dead. As she did that, the suppressing fire hit her and I clutched my fist in the relief knowing she was badly wounded, but still alive. Her escape from that hell-hole was minutes away. She only needed to bring down this one last alien she has flanked and the was would be clear. I'm not a religious man , but at that moment I prayed that she be spared and return home. I was soon reminded that there is no god. Over the coms came crying and muffled screams: "Squad broken! SQUAD BROKEN!". I watched her scream in fear and pain, beg the alien for mercy as she got swiftly executed.

Operation vengeful father. And vengeful he was. Final tally counted 9 aliens dead, at least 4-5 more presumed alive and squad lost. The skyranger pilot signalled code black and he was ordered to return to base. Having informed Brazil of our failure to stop the abduction, knowing they were already pissed because we didn't shoot down the UFO that caused this. They said that, X-COM was a mistake and that unless things improve, they will be withdrawing from the council of founding nations. Salt on the wound.

Well I just spent all of the X-COM founding on new recruits. Hopefully this batch will last longer than the last, because I just had to sell everything short of my soul to hire them. We are currently broke and it's not even the end of month one. Wonderful and it's just after I ordered construction on the second satellite uplink.

18th of match 2016

Well, this was pleasantly surprising. Earlier today we got a report form the council that they have been observing aliens in some random city in Nigeria for the past 3 days. First of all, why did they wait 3 ungodly days to tell us that something was up in Nigera. In three days the aliens could have emptied the entire city and left. Never the less, this was highly unusual for them. An usual alien operation lasts just over 4 hours. In those 4 hours they scan the people covered in green goo, select a few individuals, abduct them and sanitise the area. 3 days and no people missing means that something big was up.

Knowing how the last two operations went I decided that an all rookies squad should be sent in as a first wave. I was wholly prepared for another squad wipe even before the mission had begun. I was twice as sure that was going to happen when the troops arrived at the area and our eggheads finally realised what the aliens were doing. This was a bomb diffuse situation. Except that the bomb was a big ficking plasma bomb capable of wiping the city from the fact of the earth. As if abductions where half of their freacking race invades weren't bad enough, now they started planting explosives in the cities and this one was 40 minutes away from going off.

I ordered my men to scramble for these weird nodes, that were apparently set up to channel the bombs power. Every node we disabled gave us about 10 more minutes before the bomb had to go off. Obviously not all of the nodes were unguarded and the team soon found itself fighting for the nodes. I guess we must have surprised the aliens because in the initial exchange none of my people went down and we managed to clear out the aliens.

But then this weird half-human alien shows up and runs past my entire team. How do I know it's an alien? Because normal human beings don't explode into a fucking cloud of caustic acid when they die. I don't know what was up with it though. I have never seen an alien stupid enough to just attempt a run-by when my entire team is present. I was lucky one of the guys realised that its skin was a but green for a human. That the fact that I was holding an alien laser gun. Never the less the team pushed on and found the bomb in a slaughterhouse. My team managed to quickly dispatch the two guardians while the third team member diffused the bomb.

Then suddenly 3 more of these half-breed bastards show up and the rookies, miraculously take them down without them being able to shoot back. Minutes later the area is secure and none of my guys even got wounded. The aliens must have really not expected us for them to be so ill-prepared. I can only wish this happens again. But it wont. Oh no. they are way too smart for that.

Back at the base I have everyone a promotion. Except that guy, as he has had some disciplinary issues before. One of the guys was a very promising indoAlso our scientists finally produced some results on alien weaponry. The aliens use some advanced targeting algorithms on their weapons. this explains their bullshit accuracy. I have ordered the scopes equipped with that tech form the workshop. I could only afford two. Luckily the council payed really well for that mission and not only that, but all the people in Nigeria now love me. I wish this happened more often.

Another, what will from now on be known as regular day on the job. At 8.40 PM a UFO was spotted above Europe. And this wasn't one of those push over UFO's from the previous week. This one was big. Huge. I ordered that a interceptor be equipped with Stingray missiles. I couldn't believe when the engineer told me that rearming would take 12 hours. 12 HOURS. Do they have to build the damn missile? Having decided not to risk my only other operational interceptor I decided to let the UFO pass. It was probably too big for us anyway. But then, 2 hours later, it landed in Iceland and I fullishly decided that we're going to contest it. Oh god, why.

Having decided that perhaps a full on squad of specialists is too valuable for such an attempt I sent in five rookies under the guidance of Matthew Robson. As our troops landed we realised just how huge this UFO was. This was probably a troop carrier or something. The troops were very uneasy as I ordered them inside. even at this point, before any of them got inside they were already hearing a metric ton of aliens coming from the inside. Also someone tell my how can an air-tight spaceship not be soundproof? As the rookies were positioning on the outside of this small door, four of these... arachnid quadrupedal rape-engines came running up to us from out of nowhere. Although not returning fire, our reaction shots certainly didn't put a dent in them. I ordered one of my men to chuck a high explosive grenade towards them. The grenade hit hole and the aliens were visually hurt, BUT STILL STANDING. It was at this point that my "Screwed" sense started tingling. Knowing that there are bound to be swarms of aliens further in I decided to have everyone fire on the horrors rather than chuck another grenade. This was my second mistake (first being the decision to not just nuke the area and be done with it). My troops opened fire and through combined effort one of the beasts barely went down.

At this point I started sweating. That still left three alive and I knew, that the lack of weapons doesn't make them any less of a danger to my team, but what I was treated to. I can barely believe it myself. This looked like someone had mixed together Xenomorphs, Zombies and rectal bleeding due to forced penetration into one thing. It started innocent enough with one of the advancing demons getting gunned down by Spec Robson. The other two aliens then ran straight up the wall to two of the rookies standing on that ledge and brutally raped them. and by rape I don't mean the kind you walk away form with a sore anus. I watched through the shoulder cam of one of the victims as the alien picked them up and then penetrated their lower bodies with this phallic object, that extended so far up their anus it literally popped out of their heads. And I wish it had stopped there. Luckily our reaction fire finally brought the demon-spawn down and I though "well that was gruesome", as I ordered everyone to reload and prepare for an imminent engagement with aliens that were obviously still on the other side of that door. What happened next was straight from a horror movie.

At first thought I was dreaming. It wasn't until two more of the rookies lied on the ground, dissolving in acid and Specialist Matthew screaming shiftless for squad evak, that I realised that this was in fact a gruesome reality. What you are about to read may sound unbelievable, but it was true. The two soldiers that had been brutally impaled by the rape-things stood up, their facial expressions entirely blank, and begun spitting acid and groping the two, now entirely sharted, rookies. Having seen that I immediately ordered the remaining surviving rookie to grenade the zombies. It didn't work and the only thing that grenade accomplished was a swift death for the, otherwise slowly dying, rookies. The zombie combo then walked up to the panicking Matthew Robson and cornered him. I told everyone to empty their clips, BUT THE DAMN ZOMBIES WERE STILL STANDING. Seconds later SPEC Robson begun sharing in the agony of the burning acid, that the two rookies from before were experiencing and I knew. Everything was lost.

I ordered the remaining rookie, who surprisingly hadn't panicked to this point, to evac the area and she ran like hell back to the skyranger, dodging fire from the alien ambush that was set up along the way. Seconds later the skyranger lifted off, with her on board and another set of bodies never to be recovered. Another failure. Another massive dent in our troop roster. Another squad brutally broken. If this keeps up, Earth has no future. No lube was used on this day.

New recruits have finally arrived today. Finally some reinforcements. the last 2 missions have been murderous and at this point we are unable to hire the new recruits until more founds are released. This is not good, because If our current luck holds we will be out of troops in two months time. On the good note the SHIV has finally been developed. We will be using it in a future mission and our interceptor has finally been repaired.

Remember when I was talking about those much needed founds. How we needed the money peep things rolling. Well today we had another abduction report. This time from Argentina. I scrambled my team to the area, this time under the lead of Specialist Tuomo Erkkilä.

They arrived at the location 4 hours later. The aliens hit this train depot and our guys got offloaded on the low-ground. As we landed I ordered one of the rookies to immediately dash for the high-ground. That was a mistake they suddenly found 4 aliens in front them. This was not good as one on the team was as fast as this guy. I ordered the team to move up hoping the the guy would survive. Then as our team moved up to support him we were hit by flanking fire as 4 more of the grey slithered from behind a truck. The team got pinned down and one of the guys got hit. They survived the first wound but as they dodged fire from the flaker they exposed themselves to the fire from the high ground and got gunned down.

As shooting fully broke out and shots started going everywhere I ordered SPEC Tuomo to move up and throw a grenade at the enemies on the high-ground. THe grenade hit and blew up the wagon they were hiding behind, but surprisingly not the aliens. This is bad. Just a couple of weeks ago a grenade like this would vaporise the Alien, yet here they were, wounded, but standing. The bastards must be employing better armour. At least their cover was not blown and the scouting rookie managed bring one of the down. As the firefight rushed on another of my guys got hit. Badly and then as if this wasn't enough two alien drones came rushing in, as if the current rape wasn't enough.

In the thrid mission in a row I ordered a fighting retreat, warning the skyranger the spool up the engines as this was going to be a close one. Seconds after that the scout-rookie at the front panicked. I ordered Erk to move up and support them. Wasn't long after that the the panicking rookie started screaming that they were being attacked by dragons. The aliens apparently did their thing again. AS the team on the low-ground got pinned down and we were unable to bring the drones down, I ordered a smoke grenade be thrown, which turned out to be useless as our wounded guy still managed to get hit. This time they went down, bleeding. Shortly after that the drones performed a flanking manoeuvre and, unobscured by smoke, wounded another agent.

Meanwhile, on the high-ground the battle raged on. The rookie composed themselves, but it wasn't long after we took another casualty and they were crying again. The drones were wreaking havoc on our troops and while Specialist Erkkilä was able to bring down two more aliens with another grenade. He and the rookie eventually got overrun, as everyone on the low-ground got slaughtered. His final heroic action was holding the ground, drawing fire for the only remaining member of the low-ground team to be able to escape.

The mission ended in another failure. Another brutal slaughter of our team and another major dent in our troop reserves. Argentina has now promised to side with the Brazil and pulled the founding. But that is not what concerns me. It is what will happen to the humanity if X-COM proves to be a failure. That is the greatest issue.